> Dear Kevin: > > I didn't mean to sound so defensive! And, yes, I > think you're right, that > when would is part of the verb the past does sound a > bit more acceptable. > I do think, however, that it has the flavor of > pastness that is > unintended--that perhaps it could be interpreted as > > I would have preferred that we > waited a little longer, > > where the event of waiting is past rather than > future. I think that the > present tense version is unambiguous. I think you may be right that the past form in the subordinate clause is ambiguous. But it doesn't bother me that a form can be ambiguous. Lots of forms are. > As an editor, Kevin, I would choose the present. > > Martha This is interesting. From the start, when I was editing a sentence like "Would you prefer that we wait a little longer?", it didn't occur to me to change it. It sounds great as is. It's just that the alternate form popped into my head, and I wanted to know why. But as I started thinking about it, I realized that this case did not strike me as a question of standard vs. nonstandard, or even formal vs. informal. I may very well be wrong, and that's why I posted the query to begin with. My dialect of English seems to treat both forms equally; in other words, I don't associate any extralinguistic factors that would make ME, when I speak or write, choose one over the other. I'm interested to know if others share my intuitions, or if this is a case of regional/dialectal variation. Kevin Lemoine __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com